This invention pertains to a wheel mounting assembly for supporting a wheel with a tire mounted thereon during handling for balancing of the tire combination or for changing tires on the wheel.
Heretofore, and in view of the fact that all automotive wheels do not contain the same number of mounting stud openings, it has been required to provide individual support plates for each given style and type of wheel so as to accommodate wheels with different numbers of openings from any given standard as well as to permit wheels to be mounted for balancing where the stud openings are located at a greater or lesser radius than standard. As an alternative to maintaining a large inventory of such assemblies, one suggestion has been to provide an assembly with individually movable mounting studs each of which moves independently of the others so that any combination of mounting hole positions can be engaged. Such an assembly has been observed to be quite difficult to manage when attempting to mount the wheel thereon. Thus, there is a need for an improved mounting assembly of the kind described.
In addition to the above, it should be relatively evident that in a machine of the type described for rotating a wheel and a tire mounted thereon for purposes of balancing the combination of tire and wheel, the tolerances among the various portions of the movable parts must be as close as possible commensurate with costs and performance to obtain an accurately balanced combination wheel and tire. Thus, if a tire and wheel combination as mounted moves on the assembly, the balancing usually will be inaccurately achieved.
Accordingly, it has been desirable to obtain a rotatable wheel mounting device of the kind described in which lost motion is substantially eliminated.